Eastern Standard Time: Is that village or town?

I can't imagine what moving to a new state was like prior to our lovely smart phones with built in GPS.  I have lived and died by that little gizmo the past few weeks as I travel around finding all the day to day spots.  You don't realize just how many places you go in a given week without thought until they are all removed.  You need coffee....yea, from where?  Picking up groceries, meeting friends at a bar, grabbing a bite to eat.  Each of these tasks is no longer hopping in the car and driving, it's hopping in the car and grabbing your phone to get directions before starting the car. Like I said, thank gawd for that phone...Can you remember the day when we relied on verbal directions given by our friends over a landline!?  When Thomas Brother's were in the back seat of every car in case you -really- screwed up and missed a turn because the "McDonald's on the left" had shut down.  Crazy times.

 This particular move it is even more exacerbated by the village/town/city structure of the east coast.  On the west coast it's pretty simple.  There is the name of the town, and if you don't belong to a town you are simply in an unincorporated county. 

Out here on the east coast, where colonialist lived and the idea of America and its states grew up around them there is a decidedly more complex answer to the "where do you live" question.  Locals do not bat an eye and clearly all understand each other's answers to that question.  I, with my west coast lag, had a decidedly more stumbled approach when learning my way.  Below is a graphic that is for example purposes only.

As you can see when someone says, "oh it's in Goshen".  It can mean several things.  It can mean the village of Goshen, which we would call a town center, or it can me the larger town of Goshen.  Also, the city of Middletown (cities are defined as more than 50,000 citizens) is located in the town of Goshen.  Please note, that "village" "town" and "city" all have clear and distinct meaning out here with definitions based in historic or population rules. 

I alone, with my west coast eyes, seem to find this an amusing way to structure things.  Cities should not be within a town. Towns by definition are smaller than a city!  Right? Oh silly west coast girl.

When I ask a clarifying question to ensure I'm heading to the correct place people often raise eyebrows and look around to see if my caretaker has lost me...because everyone seems to know what to call "a place" even if that "place" to a stranger like me, actually has three names.  And in a place that calls New York City people "Citidiots" being marked as an outsider is not aways a great thing. 

So far, this has been the most marked difference between the west and east coasts in terms of getting around. 

From all of the villages I have visited I can say that they are all of the same structure, but there doesn't seem to be a chain store anywhere to be found.  They each have a diner, usually named after the village they are in, a couple of neighborhood bars, bakery, hardware store, salon, deli, maybe a gas station, and a smattering of mom and pop restaurants. Oh and a big freakin' church, it's always the tallest thing in town by quite a bit.  The really old kind, back from when the church wanted to make you feel small and not included in god's great plan unless you showed up and paid your alms.  If you want the comforts of Applebee's or Target you must get out of the village and go to a city...which of course means you are still in a town.

Eastern Standard Time: Why I went

So as most of you know I have completed my cross America trek, winding 3000 miles through snow, mountains and Great Plains to transplant myself to the small village of Goshen, New York.  When starting this journey I did not think much of it. Yes to deconstruct one’s life and start anew, as much as one can while still keeping your sense of self, is not something most people do.  But people’s reactions are beginning to convince me that such vagabondery is unheard of in this day and age. People’s reactions have been interesting.  There has been a lot of “wow you’re brave, I could never do that” which I don’t fully understand. I don’t see it as a particularly brave thing to do.  Other reactions which have been more comical are in the vein of “what crimes did you commit?”, “who are you running from”.  Perhaps these people have watched too many Lifetime movies, or are the 12 remaining fans of Ashley Judd films.  But when faced with the same questions so often in these few weeks it has given me lots of time to figure out the “why” behind chucking everything in a car and setting out.  It’s not that I am running from something. It’s that I am searching for something… a place of belonging.  A place of acceptance. And with each passing year it feels like the terrain of that magical land grows a bit more elusive…rapidly reaching the level of requiring magical objects or events to be found.

There have been lovely multi-year stretches where I was happily ensconced in an urban tribe.  If the tribe were being described on the Nature channel I would usually be defined as the quiet alpha female.  I do not lead the party, I am not the loud one, but am usually there behind the scenes, the one that plans, observes, and captures moments for others with a click of the camera. But each time it has come to an end. The details of the how/why are my private thoughts, but each time has taught me a good number of lessons which continue to shape my personality to this very day.  I think right now I am working on the lessons of “you are too hard on yourself”, “your perception is just one version of the truth,” and in the words of one particularly missed friendship, “you think too much”. 

And so with this mindset I took advantage of the one thing being completely unattached has…mobility.  With no family in country, no urban tribe, no friends in crisis, a job that brought no satisfaction other than a cavalier attitude about money, I left.  It’s just that simple.  There are friends that I will (do) miss and a job to find…but there is no more thought to it than that.  And so eastward I went, to a safe harbor of good friends in this tiny little village of 5,000 people.  Where you talk to the neighbors and run into friends on Main Street over your morning cup of Joe…not a single Starbucks or chain restaurant in sight.  I am falling in love with the charm of the east coast…the history of the buildings, gentle rolling hills that are shockingly green, the brusque nature of blue collar mentality that seems to be a mainstay of its people.  It’s a lovely little spot.  Its ways are different enough to remind me multiple times a day that I am, “not in Kanas anymore,” but whether this is the magical land I am looking for is still being determined.  As it should be…I have only been here a mere 10 days.    And friendships are best when tempered with time and context.

Cheers